Tools for Lean Startup
Since Eric Ries developed the Lean Startup methodology in 2008, a considerable number of tools have been designed to help apply this “philosophy”. And every year these tools are updated and growing.
- Business Model Canvas
- Lean Canvas
- Value Proposition Canvas
- Minimum Viable Product
- Customer Development
- Empathy maps
- Customer Journey Map
- Stakeholders Map
- Customer Insights Matrix
- Service Blueprint.
- Validation Board
- Design Thinking
- Now menaguer Business Board :-)
- etc...
When a project is just an idea in the head of an entrepreneur, they want to have the greatest certainty that the idea will be successful in the market, and these methodologies can help reduce the risk of “failure” before investing a single euro. The latter sounds great doesn't it? 1 - I have an idea.2 - I apply the tools based on Lean Startup3 - I validate the idea = I set up the company and I get further4 - The idea is not valid = I don't set up the company and I save thousands of euros. 5 - I'm looking for another idea and starting over. But this idyllic and free cycle is neither the panacea nor the definitive solution, what's more, most of the time it doesn't work. Can you imagine that it will always work? All startups would be successful, wouldn't they? Well, it seems that is not the case. There are several reasons why the lean plan may fail.
- The methodology is poorly applied and it is believed that the business idea is validated, whereas in reality it is the opposite. You don't have a single customer who would pay for your product.
- You have blind faith in the business idea, you give importance to metrics that “sound” good, and you don't focus on the factors that really affect you to validate the idea.
- The methodology is applied when the company has already been on the market. And you don't even want to see the results obtained because the entire business model and company structure would have to change.
Apart from these, there are dozens of factors that can cause the methodology to fail and that you don't know that it escaped you. In short, all these tools help but they are not a map with an X on top of the treasure. And as always, we must appeal to common sense and experience.
